In June, Black Deer Festival returned for its fifth edition although it feels as though it has been around forever. It has quickly become synonymous with the very best of Americana, finding an enticing balance between all forms of American roots music. Most music lovers will find something to enjoy from big-name headliners, whose link to Americana is tenuous, to traditional country and alt-folk. [...] Rosanne Cash was accompanied by her husband and collaborator John Leventhal and together they launched into a stirring ‘Modern Blue’, which energised the crowd. Next up, by way of introduction to ‘The Sunken Lands’, Cash talked about her grandmother Carrie who picked cotton in the Mississippi Delta area while raising seven children. This is magical songwriting, full of narrative detail and absorbing melodic currents.

The Newton Theatre presents Rosanne Cash with her husband, guitarist John Leventhal, on Sunday, October 20, 2024 at 7:00pm. One of the country’s pre-eminent singer-songwriters, Rosanne Cash has released 15 albums of extraordinary songs that have earned four Grammy Awards and 12 additional nominations. [...] Cash received the 2021 Edward MacDowell Medal, awarded since 1960 to an artist who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture. She is the first woman composer to receive this prestigious honor. Earlier this year, she was elected as an Honorary American member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. ‘I consider artists to be in the service industry; the premier service industry for the heart and soul. I am curious to a pathological degree and the Sword of Time hangs over me, and those two thing — curiosity and the hourglass— make me feel more urgent than ever to connect, to find community, and to create. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks, it only matters that what is unsaid and what is unseen is given form and has a voice.’